Survival
by BetterThanCoffee
Summary: Katara will do anything to protect her tribe, even if it means sacrificing herself. Pre-A:TLA [WARNING: Eating Disorder]


Every day was a battle of survival for the people living in the Southern Water Tribe. With a lack of natural resources that the frozen tundra allotted, and with the ever-present threat of the return of the black snow, smiles grew brittle and hearts grew weak. As the men of their tribe sailed away, taking Katara's father further from their shores, she felt as if she had already become an orphan. The Fire Nation was powerful, far more so than their shrinking populous. Even the boat crafted out of the finest whalebone was no match for cannons and steel. As Sokka's hand tightened at her side, Katara knew that she could no longer think of herself and live in selfishness. She had a family to take care of.

That evening was the first time Katara refused a meal. As Gran-Gran placed a bowl of stewed sea prunes in front of Katara, Sokka had already finished off his bowl, and was staring forlornly at the now empty pot. Sokka had not quite gotten the hand of hunting, his gangly limbs of adolescence making him awkward and clumsy. He fell more than he caught fish, and as their warriors were also the tribe's primary hunters, the village was in short supply of fresh meat.

"Here," Katara spoke with a soft grin, pushing her bowl in front of her brother. "I'm not really hungry, anyway."

"Katara…"

"Hey, if you're going to a big, strong warrior and protect our tribe, you're going to need your strength, right?" Sokka immediately beamed at his sister, and quickly gobbled up her portion. Katara pressed a tan hand to her stomach, hoping to ease the hunger seeded in her stomach. It wasn't as if they hadn't gone hungry before. The winter two years previous was so brutal, that Katara was shocked the whole village had not starved to death with the lack of anything edible living through the brutal weather. Katara could handle an empty stomach every now and then. She had to be strong for her family.

The age gap in their village was widely disproportionate due to the years of raids the Fire Nation brutally beat upon their small community. There were a handful of elderly, women sitting comfortably at middle-aged, small children, and Katara and Sokka. The elderly were too weak to go out to hunt and scavenge, and the women had to look after their children who were too young to be left alone, and thus, food duty fell solely on the pair of siblings.

Some days, Katara and Sokka would return to their village, hauling a pile of fish and aquatic vegetables so large, that it took nearly the entire village to bring their haul within the walls. More often than not, Katara and Sokka would return with a meager supply, barely enough for a large family, but somehow, supposed to sustain everyone who would be staring up at them, with large, hungry eyes.

Katara knew she was important only in a sense that the village needed her to help its survival. She did not have any delusions of grandeur that made her expect more than what was to be given to others. If anything, her sense of duty made her maudlin. If needed, Katara would peel every inch of her flesh off of her bones if it would keep a child from going cold. Her father was relying on her and her brother, and Katara felt no other need than to keep her village safe, happy, and healthy.

Katara discovered that if she skipped at least one meal a day that would greatly increase the portion of the food for the rest of the villagers. Several months had passed since the men had left their tribe, and the small children left behind had been growing like weeds. Their boots were too tight, their coats too short, and their stomachs always empty. It broke her heart to see little Kira crying to her mother because in her hunger, there wasn't enough to satisfy her stomach. Katara did not want her lack of efforts to ever result in the suffering of anyone; especially to the people she considered her family. The entire village was her family, and she needed to take care of them.

"Katara, are you getting thinner?" Sokka asked through a mouthful of seal jerky. The family of three was gathered around the table in their tent, and Katara's dinner was woefully anemic in comparison to the other two. Katara had further cut back on her meals after hearing Kira's cries. Sadly, her efforts had not seemed to have made much of a difference, and Katara was just ruminating over solutions when Sokka's declaration broke her concentration.

"Leave her alone," injected Gran-Gran. "She's growing. When I was her age, I shot up a foot, and the rest of my body stretched out thin, like leather, just to keep up." Gran-Gran patted her granddaughter on the arm fondly, as Katara gazed down at her figure. Had she really grown thinner? Under her bulky clothes, it was hard to tell. It still felt as if everything hung the same way. Her blue eyes lifted to the nearly empty bowl set out in front of her. If she was really losing weight, then wouldn't there still be more food to go around for the rest of the village?

That night, under the warm glow of the fire, Katara stripped down to her bindings and examined every inch of her body. Everything about her body was soft. Soft arms, soft thighs, soft stomach. Lifting her hands to her face, her fingers scrabbled to find a jaw line hiding underneath the cheeks rounded with baby fat.

What was Sokka thinking when he asked if she was getting thinner? If anything, she was getting bigger! The image of Kira, so tiny and petite, flashed across Katara's mind. There were times Katara was just afraid to touch Kira, so fearful that the child would break. How could have Katara been living under any delusion that she was helping out her villagers, when she herself was growing fat while the children were left to starve?

Katara had been living under the illusion that the Fire Nation was the monster. They had stripped their home bare, and left them to scrabble for any scrap of survival. They were just strangers. A true monster stalks its prey, gets to know them, and destroys them on the inside. The rip apart the values and integrity until all there is left is bones. Katara was the monster, and her prey were all the starving children that she had left behind.

That night, Kira died in her sleep. She was only four years old. The villagers were stunned. The other mothers had to pull Kira's weeping mother away for Gran-Gran to examine the girl to determine the cause of death. Gran-Gran declared the event a freak accident – the child just stopped breathing. The whole village mourned and no one cried foul play. Katara knew different.

Kira's death was not a freak accident. Katara watched the little girl every day. She was a happy and joyful child; despite the hand life dealt her. If Katara had only tried harder, Kira's mother, Kyla, wouldn't be holed up in her tent. She would be out laughing and gossiping with the other mothers. Kyla's eyes would be bright with joy, and not hollow. As Sokka threw his arm around his sister's shoulder in comfort at the child's funeral, Katara vowed that not another child would fall prey to her own viciousness and selfishness.

Only six months had passed since the men had left the village, and it already felt like a lifetime. With Kira's death, and a father out there not knowing he lost his only child, Katara gave up hope of the men ever returning. Katara wanted to save their village, and she could no longer just stand by and hope that a miracle would come swooping in from above.

After Kira's funeral, Katara threw herself fully into saving the lives of everyone who lived in their small community. From sun up to sun down, Katara would trek out into the snow, with a fierce look piercing in her blue eyes. She would collect all the food she could find, and if there was none around, she would continue her search, long after Sokka returned to the beckoning warmth the fires in their village provided.

She tore up all of her old clothes and sewed new articles for the women and children. Katara even created a new garment or two for her own brother; of course, she told him she got the material elsewhere. Sokka would be mortified to know that he favorite new shirt was recycled from one Katara used to wear. No one noticed the lack of variety in Katara's remaining wardrobe. When one is covered with a giant overcoat most of time, the same shirt or pants goes unnoticed.

Katara would only eat one meal a day, and that was only if she found the time. As she rushed past the table, insisting she was not hungry, with a pile of fabric in her arms, she did not notice the worried looks her brother and grandmother sent her way. Sokka worried the nail on his thumb between his teeth. He had promised his father that he would look after his sister, yet in true Katara fashion, she had taken upon herself to look after him instead.

Sokka knew that the death of their mother had hit Katara hard. He was ashamed to admit that it probably affected her more than it did him. As the female figure left behind, Katara has swept into a maternal role far younger than anyone would have asked her to. Gran-Gran and their father thought it was natural, sweet even, that Katara felt as if Sokka needed that sort of role model in his life, but now, watching Katara cater to the whims of everyone in the village, he was starting to realize that perhaps it was not a choice on her part.

Katara had an insatiable need to please others. She bore others burdens, leaving behind no room to mend over her own wounds. With no parents left in their household, as their aging grandmother could not really take up the tasks expected of a mother or father, Katara had skipped adolescence and jumped straight into adulthood. Sokka was a bit miffed that it took him almost a year after the men's departure to realize this.

After their father left, Sokka was so wrapped up in his own feelings of failure and shortcomings as a man that he failed to realize that his own sister was self-destructing. Watching her thin hands shake as Katara attempted to thread a needle, Sokka felt that she would explode sooner rather than later. He didn't know how to help her. Sokka told himself to watch over her carefully. Maybe this was something that she just needed to work out of her system.

Several more months passed, and Sokka watched as his sister grew thinner and quieter. One evening, while sitting by the central fire in their village and observing Katara from a distance, Kyla walked up to Sokka and took a seat beside him. Sokka nearly fell off the bench with fright from the sudden presence of a new body, and then he did fall of the bench when he realized whom it was.

Kyla had not been seen since Kira's funeral, and if it was not for the assurances from his grandmother, Sokka would have believed the poor woman would have died along with her daughter.

After several minutes of silence, watching the flames create striking shadows in the late evening, Sokka was beginning to wonder if he should try to say something when Kyla spoke up.

"She's sick."

That was unexpected. After her husband left and Kira died, Kyla had lived all alone in her tent, rarely accepting visitors. "Who is sick?"

"Your sister."

Sokka turned his face from Kyla and back over to his sister, where she was plating the hair of a young girl kneeling in between her knees.

"I'm not really sure if she is sick," Sokka replied slowly, "but there is definitely something wrong." Sokka's head fell into his hands. "I wish Dad were here."

One of Kyla's hands placed themselves on Sokka's back. She did not rub or pat him in comfort, but rather, it was an act of solidarity. She was present with Sokka, and somehow, that was far more comforting than any false sense of sympathy would have been. Later, Sokka would look back at this conversation and wonder what exactly Kyla knew. If Sokka had asked, would anything have changed?

Instead, they both sat in silence, until Sokka eventually rose and left Kyla sitting by herself. It wasn't the bravest thing to do, or probably the manliest, but Sokka did not know what else he could have done. Everyone in their village was a mess. They were lost. The war left them in shambles, and every time the black snow fell, the pieces became more and more obscured.

The next time Katara and Sokka went hunting, it was an ordinary day. The family had gotten up and went through their morning ablutions, and once seeing the weather was clear, Katara and Sokka made the executive decision to attempt to catch some game. Later, Sokka would scold himself. He should have seen it coming.

That morning, Katara was tired. That in itself was not unusual. Lately, Katara was always lethargic. She was slow to move in the mornings, early to bed at night, and more often than not, Sokka would find her sleeping across the floor of their tent, where she had collapsed in the middle of a project. Still, when Sokka grabbed Katara's hand to pull her along and felt the faint trembles running through her arm, he should have added it together. Or maybe when she swayed from random dizzy spells. No matter how many times Sokka ran the day through his head, he felt as if he should have noticed something, not just as a warrior, but as a brother. He didn't, though, and that fact would always cause him guilt.

Katara and Sokka were miles from their village. A thrush of seals had recently moved into the area, and the siblings knew the villagers were becoming desperate for meat other than fish. Crouching behind a snowdrift, Sokka eyed a particularly fat seal, and lofted his spear above his shoulder.

"Watch my back Katara," Sokka called back. Just as he turned his head, Katara collapsed right before his eyes, and started tumbling down the slope. "Katara!"

Dropping his spear and not caring that he was scaring the seals away from all the noise he was making, Sokka charged after his sister. She had rolled to a stop at the bottom of the shallow slop. Cradling her face gently in his hands, Sokka cursed himself under his breath for never taking the first-aid lessons his Gran-Gran offered.

"Katara, you have got to wake up. You hear me? Katara! WAKE UP, KATARA!" Sokka grabbed her to his chest, eyes spinning wildly around the terrain. Rope. He had brought rope. Katara had always insisted on bringing rope with them on their hunting trips. She always cited safety reasons, and Sokka was never more grateful for her overbearing nature than at that moment.

Securing his sister to his back in a sort of mockery of the slings he has seen the mothers of newborn babies wear, Sokka began the long trek back to the village. It was far, and Sokka had no idea how long it took. He could not concentrate on his own fatigue. Sokka had one goal and that goal was to get Katara back home, safe and sound.

After an undetermined amount of time, Sokka made it back to the village. The women moved in a flurry, relieving Sokka of his sister as they jumped into action. Sokka could only stand there, watching as they swept his sister away into the healing tent. After awhile, Kyla came out to hold his hand. They stood there, not saying anything, holding hands and watching the shadows inside the tent.

Katara was too thin. That was the general consensus. When Sokka first heard Katara argue the fact, and try to point out her gluttony in comparison to those around them, Sokka got so angry, that he punched and beat his newly-built watch tower until it came tumbling down. As he stood, surrounded by snow, his own angry breath fogging up in front of his face, Sokka swore he would never let his sister down again.

It took months to get Katara to start eating normally, and even longer to make her feel like she deserved it. All the while, Sokka would be sitting beside her, not looming, but watching her plate out of the corner of his eye to make sure she consumes everything. Months passed, and as Katara gained weight, she seemed happier. Not happy, not yet, but she was getting there.

A little over two years since their father set off with the rest of the men to fight in the war, Katara and Sokka set off for a fishing trip. They were no longer the only ones in their village hunting for food. As the children had gotten a little older, a sort of daycare was established amongst the elders, and many of the middle-aged women ventured out on their own to get food for their village. Now, when Katara and Sokka set out on these mini-adventures, it wasn't for survival, but more for bonding between the two siblings.

"Did you eat, today?" Sokka asked, even though Katara knew full well he watched her eat every bite of her fish.

"Yes, Sokka. I don't have to ask you the same question, though, do I?" She raised her eyebrow, indicated the jerky already in his hand.

"Hey, I'm a growing boy!" Sokka defended himself. "Do you think we'll find anything good today?"

"Probably not," Katara replies, not bothered, as their boat begins to float in the direction of a very particular iceberg.


End file.
